Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reinforcement structure of a side sill for a vehicle which maintains the frame of a vehicle body at the lower side of a vehicle door and bears the load in the longitudinal direction and the vertical direction applied to the vehicle.
Description of Related Art
Generally, a side sill is one of the strength members constituting the side opening of the vehicle and placed under the vehicle door. The side sill is preferably not so high for the elevating rigidity. If the height of the side sill is set to a low value, the side sill may be damaged by coming into contact with obstacles on the ground. Therefore, the side sill must have proper dimensions while maintaining the cross-sectional area for securing the required rigidity.
The side sill is provided by combining an inner panel connected to a center floor panel mounted on the vehicle and an outer panel through welding or the like to form an internal space (sill space).
In order to efficiently use the internal space formed in the side sill, the internal space of the side sill has been mostly utilized to absorb the impact applied from the outside of the vehicle and to increase the deformation strength.
In other words, the inner portion of the side sill has low deformation strength due to its easy squeezing as the side sill space is empty, so the reinforcement member is inserted into the side sill space to protect the occupant and vehicle from impact.
Attempts to efficiently use the empty space and to absorb the external impact caused by the vehicle collision by inserting the reinforcement member into the internal space of the side sill have been steadily continued. It should be, however, noted that the actual vehicle collision situation is most similar to the small overlap collision situation.
Because the driver reflexively turns the vehicle handle when he or she feels a collision risk, the actual collision is most likely to occur partly frontal or side collisions, rather than in full frontal collisions.
In response to the present situation, vehicle manufacturers have implemented a small overlap frontal crash test.
In other words, it is a test to evaluate the safety by making the 25% area of the front portion of the vehicle running at a speed of 64 km/h hit the barrier of about 1.5 m height.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and may not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.